We would like to honor the extraordinary heroes, National leaders, Generals, Scientists, Partisans, Diplomats, Civil Servants and the countless supremely brave Resistors -- all the individuals who helped eradicate the darkest period in history.

The eleven million victims of the Nazi regime included intelligentsia, artists, homosexuals, religious groups including six million Jews, the mentally and physically disabled, prisoners of war, gypsies, and races that were deemed inferior.

Carl Lutz, (1895 – 1975) Swiss Vice-Consul in Budapest, Hungary from 1942 until the end of World War II. He is credited with saving over 62,000 Jews from deportation to Nazi Extermination camps during the Holocaust.

Chiune Sugihara, 杉原 千畝 (1900 - 1986) Vice Consul for the Japanese Empire in Lithuania. During World War II, he helped several thousand Jews leave the country by issuing them transit visas to travel to Japan.

Rafael Leonids Trujillo- Dominican Dictator, promised to receive 100,000 Jews into Dominican Republic in 1938 post the international conference in Evian. Dominican Republic was only nation accepting Jews after the conference.

Selâhattin Ülkümen, (1914 – 2003) Turkish diplomat and consul in Rhodes during the Second World War, who assisted many local Jews to escape the Holocaust.

Sir Nicholas George Winton (Wertheimer) British humanitarian who organized the rescue of 669 mostly Jewish children from German-occupied Czechoslovakia on the eve of the Second World War in an operation later known as the Czech Kindertransport. Winton found homes for them and arranged for their safe passage to Britain. The UK press has dubbed him the "British Schindler".

Spiritual Leaders and Scientists

Bishop Chrysostomos- Zakynthos offered his name and that of the Mayor's to Germans.

Archbiship Damaskinos - Archbishop of Athens during German Occupation. He quietly ordered chuches under his jurisdiction to fake Christian baptismal certificates to Jews fleeing the Nazis.

Archbishop Johannes de Jong - later Cardinal of Utrecht, Netherlands. Together with Titus Brandsma O. Carm (Dachau 1942) a letter that called for all Catholics to assist persecuted Jews, and openly condemned the Nazi German deportation of our Jewish fellow citizens (From: Herderlijk Schriven, read from all pulpits Sunday 26 January 1942).

Partisans / Resistance Fighters

Members of the Belgian Resistance - held up a train to Auschwitz freeing 231 people.

Dagobert Biermann Communist and German resistance fighter against National Socialism. Deported to Auschwitz concentration camp, where he was killed on August 2, 1943.

Beneschek Sudenten German and Communist, hiding in Bialystok under a false identity. Employed Jews and Poles in his textile mill, making it possible for Jews to smuggle arms into the ghetto, provided them with false documents and money.

Jan Karski- Polish emissary of Armia Krajowa to Western Allies, and eye witness of the Holocaust.

Necdet Kent - Turkish Consul General at Marseille, granted Turkish citizenship to hundreds of Jews. At one point he entered an Auschwitz-bound train at enormous personal risk to save 70 Jews to whom he had granted Turkish citizenship, from deportation.

Kudlatschek a Sudeten German, in charge of the motor pool of all the textile mills in Bialystok, providing transport in his own car for Jews travelling to partisan territory, and transporting arms back to the Jewish resistance organization in the ghetto from Grodno and other distant towns.

Dimitar Peshev- Minister of Justice, World War 11, Bulgaria, impeded deportation of 50,000 Jews, which was stopped. Later charged with anti-Semitism and anti-Communism and sentenced to death, sentenc commented and served one year.